Face / Off: Operation Terror
by CBB
Created for those who like the original but are getting more and more annoyed every time they watch it – by the silly moments, the dragging scenes and some way too over-the-top action sequences.
member ratings: 
(13 votes, average: 8.77 out of 10, rated)
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tagline: From over the top to great action!
original film name: Face/Off
new film name : Face/Off: Operation Terror
edit crew name : CBB
Date Original Film Was Released : 1997
Date Edit Was Released : December 2008
Original Runtime : 140 min
New Runtime : approx. 120 min
Amount of time Cut/Added : 20 min
Fanedit details: Face/Off was the best action movie in 1997 and it still is among the best, because of its fantastic effects and its cool thrilling plot of body (face) switching. It is also probably the best movie John Woo has made in the US. Unfortunately it was more of a metaphor for heroes and villains than a believable movie, which caused loads of scenes to be overacted or way too over the top. This fanedit aims to correct that and present the most watchable version of this movie ever available. Of course this movie still stretches the rules of reality far, but the worst moments are gone, presenting a breathtaking action ride and a great thrilling story in a new and more modern approach.
With about 20 minutes gone the movie is condensed, yet still complete in both its mood and flow.
The changes:
- - Castor singing Hallelujah and joining the choir (overacting)
- - cut Castor tying Pollux’s shoe laces (makes Pollux just too dumb)
- - Castor kissing the stewardess agent (over-the-top)
- - cut Archer approaching the jet from the front (over-the-top)
- - cut Castor shrugging
- - Castor pulls in the jet’s breaks earlier (so the jet might really be slower,when it hits the gate)
- - shortened hangar shootout scene by 30 seconds (over-the-top)
- - cut Miller burning Castor’s body with a cigarette (no cigarettes in a clinic, not even in 1997)
- - Cut Archer(Castor)’s FBI show (over-the-top)
- - cut Archer(Castor) seducing Archer’s wife (dragging)
- - cut some parts of the Castor(Archer) escape with Dubov (all over the top)
- - cut Castor(Archer) trying to save Dubov from falling (this guy is a mad killer, so why should Archer-Castor really care?)
- - cut Sasha revealing to Castor(Archer) that Adam is their son and Castor(archer)hugging him and calling him “Michael” (makes Archer too soft)
- - cut most of the FACE-OFF speech (artificial)
- - cut Sasha kicking the agent (over-the-top)
- - cut the entire shoot-through-the-mirror scene (totally over the top)
- - cut Archer(Castor) tying the shoelaces of dead Pollux.
- - heavily shortened the speedboat scene (way over the top)
- - less strikes with the iron bar (that really does a bit too much damage)
- - cut the entire overlong happy ending (“sorry I shot you, dad” “this is Adam” etc) (too much)
DVD DETAILS
- 120 minutes Single Layer NTSC 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with AC3-5.1 audio
- LANGUAGES : ENGLISH (5.1)
- SUBTITLES : ENGLISH (selectable)
- MENUS : main menu is animated, rest is still, all with sound
- SCENE SELECTION : yes
- EXTRAS: Deleted Scenes Featurettes:
- Cage over the top (15 minutes)
- Travolta over the top (13 minutes)
- CBB Overview for all 30 fanedits
- COVER&Disc ART : yes, on DVD-Rom part
Intention for this fanedit:
My first idea was to create a truly believable version of Face/Off, to take out ALL scenes that bend reality too far. Soon I had to discover this was not possible, starting with the helicopter that prevents the jet from taking off and from there going through EVERY action scene. I was about to drop the project.
But then I remembered how much a fan I actually was and am of the original movie and that most of these reality-stretching scenes were actually awesome for me, when I am in the right mood. Just some scenes did and do really bother me and prevent it from being what I would call a true masterpiece of its own kind.
And there I had my next fanediting mission. Get rid of what was not fitting or just too much to take or believe. My main concern was to get rid of the stupid speedboat race, as this did always seem to be totally out of place. But again I had to realize: not possible. It is essential that the heroes get from point A to point B to continue the plot.
What I did is to correct as many crazy scenes as possible, starting with the Hallelujah dance of Castor, continuing with Archer playing “chicken” with the jet to hundreds of bullets that hit no one. I tried to get rid of some of the superhero invulnerability of the heroes and make them more human and also tried to reduce moments that were meant to be emotional, but were actually more annoying, like “date night” with Archer (Castor) and his wife or Sasha telling Castor (Archer) about their son or the way too sweet family reunion finale.
And this worked really well.
The toughest decision was to cut the entire “mirror room” scene, where Archer and Castor shoot at each other through a mirror. It is in the original movie one of the most important scenes, yet it is so unbelievable in everything that it just gets in the way. I for one don’t miss it at all and to me it makes perfect sense that Castor (Archer) flees from a place that is surrounded with cops and special ops rather than taking the risk of a 5 minutes duel with his nemesis.
Hardware and software information:
Hardware:
- Windows XP computer
- with an X2 6000 dual core cpu
- and 4 GB of RAM on an ASUS board
Software:
- Womble MPEG DVD Wizard
- Ulead Media Studio Pro 8.0
- Vegas Video 7.0
- Cinema Craft Encoder
- Virtual Dub
- Adobe Audition 1.5
- Pro Show Producer
- Jasc Paint Shop Pro
- PhotoZoom Pro2
- DVD Lab Pro 1.52
- Cyberlink Power DVD
- Irfan View
- PGCDemux
- AnyDVD
- DGPulldown
- DVD Rebuilder
Time needed for the edition:
editing: 3 days, extras: 1 day, DVD menus: 1 day, quality checking and further corrections: 1 day.
persons involved:
AvP: cover and disc art
Boon23: everythign else
thank you:
Winnie, ThrowgnCpr, Mollo, Heinrich, Avp and the fabulous FE community
Buy the original DVD and support FANDIT.ORG by shopping via one of the Amazon links:
Images:
art by AvP (download here):
Disclaimer: You must own the original movie before downloading any FanEdited movie. We here at FanEdit.org respect the company’s copyrights, and don’t want to infringe on any company’s rights. Thank you, FE!
Maybe downloadable from Fanedit.info through Rapidshare and bittorrent (enter and download at your own risk and responsibility)
I’d really love to have this edit, but with a movie run of 2 hours and those extras, I’m not sure the quality will be all that good. Is it possible to make an edit for a DL DVD?
As I said earlier in the comment for Blade III, all these works of love should deserve the best quality, and that is almost always a DL edition. I cannot understand that after all the work you dedicate (I mean all the fan editors), you end up with a DVD5, sometimes for 3 hours of movie with extras. IMO, it’s not understandable.
Again my thanx and appreciation of your work and hope that you do a DL edition.
Best regards
Review by JohnFowles — December 16, 2008 @ 2:37 am
John, please, before complaining over the quality of something, could you at least watch it? Because some people know their tools and know how to properly release something. I don’t create DL DVDs because SL DVD is the common norm for fanedits. Now I would appreciate it, if you could stop the complaining and enjoy what is presented to you for free and in a good quality. It took me a long time to create this and I would really prefer it, if the movie was discussed and no strange assumptions were made about the technical quality, before you even watched it. This is also true for my other releases.
Review by boon23 — December 16, 2008 @ 3:54 am
boon23, I’m really sorry that we had began with certain misunderstandings. I never doubted nor said that you know what you do. In fact, from what I see till now, I really like your edits. From the begining, here and in Blade III, I said that I respected and appreciated the work done, evidently a work of love. Do not doubt that I will download this edit, will burn it, will print the cover and the DVD and use glossy paper for the cover and a Verbatim for the movie, because I keep in cases all my DVD’s. I don’t watch a movie from my PC. So, don’t understand why you take it personally when I never crticized your work, just said that the size of the output chosen wasn’t the most convenient for ithe quality of the end product, something that its quite different. I do use some of this programs just for my encodes, among them DVD Rebuilder (a legal copy from Jdobbs), and I still believe and stick to my words about Blade. But, I repeat, never criticizing all the dedication and skill from your part.
But I can see this is a delicate issue not very well received, so I’ll never bring it out again. And my apologies if maybe my bad English (not my native language) made you think I was questioning your skills
Regards
Review by JohnFowles — December 16, 2008 @ 5:06 am
Excellent work Boon as alway’s, you quite right to pull Johnfowles over his comment, how anyone can comment without watching is ridiculous, and the quality is
as you say excellent. A great fan edit, well done Boon and congrats on number 30. 5/5 from me.
Review by searcher — December 19, 2008 @ 1:14 pm
I did not like Face/Off. It was a huge disappointment considering the excellent work John Woo had been doing in Hong Kong with films like A Better Tomorrow (1986), Hard-Boiled (1992) and the classic The Killer (1989).
I remember walking out of the cinema during the boat chase.
So CBB has made a FanEdit of Face/Off called Operation Terror. Due to the high standard of CBB FanEdits, I was interested to see it this movie could be improved.
Unfortunately this Fanedit cannot correct the embedded stupidity of this film. CBB has toned down some painful acting and ridiculous direction but the performances are still well over the top as is the super-hero action. Yes, the movie is more tolerable because there is less of it to watch but I think more could have been pruned.
Entertainment 2 – Editing 4 – Audio 5 – DVD – 5
4/5
Review by Rock Savage — January 11, 2009 @ 5:00 pm
funny comment.
It was created for people, who liked the original movie. I am sorry if you had to endure it again, but I stated that quite clearly, Still thanks for the review and the rating, Next time though you should read the info before downloading and watching it. Might save you from wasting your time or being disappointed.
Review by boon23 — January 11, 2009 @ 5:22 pm
Yes of Course. Still to your credit I got to the end, which I did not do with the original. Also my rating of 4/5 attests to the great work you did with the FanEdit.
I watch all your work. I simply had the optimistic impression that you could redeem this movie for me. I was a huge John Woo Fan before he came to America.
Review by Rock Savage — January 11, 2009 @ 5:41 pm
i enjoyed all of these cuts minus one (…or two, read on…) – the flight attendant kissing scene!?!? best quote of the whole damn movie. i really can’t believe this was cut. this IS over the top. but easily the only thing nicholas cage has ever done that is remotely awesome.
i MUST bring this up… the process of removing nicholas cage out of any movie (or at least minimizing him) has to be one of the best ideas ever. thank you, boon, for taking on such a mission!
with that being said, i think a bit more needed to be done here. this movie needs to ALSO be de-woo-ified (slow motion, doves, ridiculous dual pistol shootouts jumping out of airplanes, etc.) AND one HUGE issue for me: the whole bloody (pun!) face removal procedure needs to be changed to not look totally f**kin stupid. you can’t just make a laser cut around your face and then the whole thing pops off… ridiculous. i think this could be masked (oh shit! another pun!) by simply editing the procedure in such a way that the audience assumes that we aren’t seeing EVERYTHING that is happening. also, why does castor troy have bloody eyelids? nose cartilage? lips? his quick reveal to the doctor needs to go.
also, i think the subplot of castor’s SON needs to at least be mentioned in the film. sasha lays it on pretty thick so either her role needs to be minimized OR this element (vital?) should be present. i think that WITH the reveal of castor’s son, we have a better comparison between the two men at the focal point.
is the “6 years later” title card necessary? i don’t think so. also, sometimes the fanedited intro and credits pull me out of a film (unlike, say infodroid’s handling of the indiana jones edits)
so after all that, this is OF COURSE a better movie – but not as much as i was expecting.
entertainment 3/5
fanediting 4/5
video 4.5/5
audio 5/5
original 3/5
fanedit 4/5
4/5
“If I were to let you suck my tongue, would you be grateful?”
Review by joebshmoe — February 18, 2009 @ 2:52 pm
ok… i also feel i need to say that i am a HUGE HK woo fan. the killer and hard boiled are two of my ALL TIME FAVORITE movies (with the killer being my favorite of the two). it just doesn’t *feel* right when he imports his techniques and over-emphasizes every damn shot for artistic impact here in face/off.
Review by joebshmoe — February 18, 2009 @ 2:55 pm